Psy-Q: Test Your Psychological Intelligence by Ben Ambridge

THE initial impression given by this book’s bright orange and green cover and
shouty strapline (“You know your IQ — now test your psychological
intelligence”) is of a pop psych-trivia quiz. Sure enough, when you open it,
Psy-Q has dozens of inter-active puzzles, tests, puns and visual illusions
aimed at guiding readers through the history of research into human emotions
and desires. The questions that leap up at you have a cheerfully
magazine-like flavour — do your blue eyes make you more or less trustworthy?
Are women really better at multitasking than men?

Brightly written though it is, there is much more to Ben Ambridge’s guide than
this description might suggest. Behind the breeziness, what he turns out to
be doing for psychology is rather like what Freak-onomics did a few years
ago for the dismal science — blowing the cobwebs off the reputation of a
discipline that